SSUSH6: ANALYZE THE CHALLENGES FACED BY THE FIRST FIVE PRESIDENTS AND HOW THEY RESPONDED. ELEMENT C: Explore Thomas Jefferson s expansion of presidential power including the purchase and exploration of the Louisiana Territory.
Thomas Jefferson q Thomas Jefferson led the nation's DemocraticRepublican Party and was a vocal critic of the Federalists' push for a stronger central government at the expense of the states. q Once Jefferson was elected President in the contentious election of 1800, he was responsible for defending and leading the nation toward prosperity. q Although his political philosophy leaned toward a decentralized federal government, he actually expanded the power of the presidency during his two terms in office. q Jefferson was the first President to take the oath of office in the new national capital in Washington, DC. He tried to set a simplistic tone for his presidency by having a more informal inauguration without much fanfare. Jefferson did highlight the need for the country s political divisions to heal and for both political parties to move forward. A famous line from Jefferson s first inaugural speech is, We are all Republicans we are all Federalists. Jefferson served two terms as President of the United States, during which he dealt with many domestic and foreign policy issues.
Constitutional Conflict q An area of conflict between the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans was how to appropriately interpret the Constitution. Democratic-Republicans, like Thomas Jefferson, believed in strict construction of the Constitution. Supporters of strict construction believe that the Constitution must be interpreted by the literal content of the document. Only powers explicitly listed in the Constitution are allowed to be claimed by the federal government. o This narrow interpretation of the Constitution restricts the power of the federal government and preserves more power for the states. In contrast, Federalists supported loose construction of the Constitution. This approach to constitutional interpretation claims that there are implied powers granted to the federal government in the Constitution. These powers may not be explicitly listed but are still granted to the federal government through the elastic clause in Article 1 of the Constitution. o The clause grants Congress the power to pass all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying out the business of the government. Federalists argued that this vague wording purposely left implied powers to the government in the event of unforeseen circumstances. The Democratic-Republicans opposed such unrestricted power. o While Jefferson ideologically was a strong advocate of strict construction, his actions as president, in some ways, practiced loose construction.
The Louisiana Purchase q The purchase of the Louisiana territory from France is an example of Thomas Jefferson s expansion of presidential power through loose construction- even though he claimed to be a strict constructionist. q Louisiana was originally a part of New France. However, the region had been subject to much transition and had changed hands several times. q At the time of Jefferson s election, Louisiana was ruled by Spain but was home to many American merchants and farmers. q In 1800, the territory changed hands again when the French general, Napoleon Bonaparte, retrieved Louisiana from Spain. New Orleans was the key port in the region and was an important outlet of American farm goods produced in the Ohio River Valley. q President Jefferson sent Robert Livingston and James Monroe to France to inquire about the purchase of New Orleans for the United States in order to secure a permanent port on the Mississippi River. Napoleon, seeing an opportunity to finance his ongoing conflicts in Europe and a way to keep the British from expanding in North America, agreed to sell the entire region, not just the port at New Orleans, to the United States for $15 million. Livingston and Monroe had been prepared to pay up to $10 million for just New Orleans. The Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the United States. Through this deal, lands critical for future expansion were acquired and the United States had secured the port at New Orleans to export American goods abroad.
The Louisiana Purchase s Significance q Nowhere in the Constitution is the President given the power to purchase land from another country. Jefferson entered the presidency as a strict constructionist, but his purchase of Louisiana was an action beyond the provisions of the Constitution. The Louisiana Purchase is an example of how Thomas Jefferson expanded the power of the presidency as the Constitution makes no provision for this type of presidential action. With the acquisition of approximately 875,000 square miles of new land, gathering information about the region and the opportunities it might offer to Americans was important to Thomas Jefferson. More settlers were moving to the Ohio River Valley in the Northwest Territory by 1800. Jefferson had sensed that the destiny of the nation was tied to the Mississippi River Valley. Jefferson worried that as more people moved to these isolated areas, the challenges of communicating and trading with the east coast could prompt the areas in the west to secede from the United States.
Lewis and Clark q No one was exactly sure what lay between St. Louis and the Pacific Ocean. Jefferson sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on a government-funded exploration of Louisiana and the western lands all the way to the Pacific Ocean. On their 16-month journey, Lewis and Clark charted the trails west, mapped rivers and mountain ranges, wrote descriptions and collected samples of unfamiliar animals and plants, and recorded facts and figures about the various American Indian tribes and customs west of the Mississippi River. Most significantly, Lewis and Clark reached the Pacific Ocean and established a legal claim to the Oregon territory along the Columbia River. This claim allowed for the future expansion of the United States to the Pacific Ocean. The Lewis and Clark expedition and subsequent claim to the Oregon territory were not presidential powers listed in the Constitution. o This is another example of the strict constructionist President s actions falling in line with the loose constructionist ideology.
Thomas Jefferson Presidential Significance q The Marbury v. Madison Supreme Court decision was issued during Jefferson s tenure. This ruling was critical in shifting power from the states to the federal judicial branch regarding the interpretation of laws. Jefferson, who had supported the states right to nullify a federal law through the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, was opposed to this shift in power. q During Jefferson s presidency he used the military to stop the Barbary Pirates in North Africa from extorting payments from US ships as they passed through the Mediterranean Sea. q Jefferson was also faced with mounting international pressure as France and Great Britain were once again at war. American ships and sailors were being harassed by both warring nations as the US sought to boost trade with Europe. The issue of the impressment of US merchant sailors weighed heavily on Jefferson who wanted to avoid war. His implementation of an embargo was an attempt to put economic pressure on the British in order to force them to not interfere with American ships or sailors. q Jefferson s foreign policy efforts to deal with the growing conflict with Britain was a root cause of the War of 1812 that breaks out during James Madison s administration.